Elizabeth’s Silver Age Ryan Smith 9 April 2018 Thesis Advisor: Professor Matthew Gerber, History Honors Council Representative: Professor Fred Anderson, History Outside Reader: Professor Peter Hunt, Classics Introduction “Therefore, thou gaudy gold, Hard food for Midas, I will none of thee. Nor none of thee [silver], thou pale and common drudge Tween man and man. But thou, thou meagre lead, Which rather threaten’st than dost promise aught, Thy paleness moves me more than eloquence, And here choose I.” -- William Shakespeare (Merchant Of Venice, Act 3, Scene 2, 101-106) In 1547, Henry VIII, King of England, Ireland and France, died. His disastrous decision to debase the currency in the 1540s, in order to use the profits to war with France, left his kingdom in financial ruin and economic turmoil. Furthermore, Edward VI, who was only nine years old, inherited the kingdom. This left powerful lords and the boy’s uncle, Edward Seymour, Protector Somerset, in charge. He decided to push Henry VIII’s religious reformation farther towards Protestantism than Henry VIII ever intended, and indeed farther than Elizabeth I later would. Churches were smashed and plundered of everything that Henry VIII left after his dissolution of the monasteries in the 1530s, and a new radical prayer book was established. Moreover, Protector Somerset provoked an expensive war with Scotland, and he further debased the currency. But then, suddenly, in 1553 Edward VI took ill and died at the age of 15. He made an attempt through his will to establish his Protestant cousin, Jane Grey, as his immediate successor; but after she reigned for only nine days, Mary I -- Henry VIII’s eldest daughter from his marriage with Catherine of Aragon -- entered London with the popular support of the people 1 and most of the nobles. So, in 1553, Mary I, a staunch Catholic, acceded to the throne of England. Shortly, popular support for Mary I would wane, and she would go down in history as England’s most infamous queen -- Bloody Mary. First, she entered an unpopular marriage with Philip II, the Hapsburg king of Spain and the Netherlands. Then, in turn, she brought the Spanish Inquisition to England -- burning 280 men and women for heresy. Perhaps worse (given that none of the Tudors were particularly tolerant in religious matters), she engaged England in another war with France, this time as an ally of Spain. The alliance benefited Spain more than England, however, as Philip II raided the English treasury and again debased the currency for the purpose of advancing a Spanish/Hapsburg agenda, with little thought to England’s own interest. As a result, the English lost their last remaining foothold on the continent, Calais, to the French in 1558: Mary I, already sick and in isolation, died shortly afterward, still deeply bemoaning the loss. Therefore, in accordance with Henry VIII’s will, his second daughter -- a bastard according to canon law -- Elizabeth I, acceded to the throne of England. Immediately, she faced several major problems. First, she was surrounded by enemies. France and Scotland straddled England’s borders, and Mary Queen of Scots (who was married to the Dauphin of France and briefly became queen consort of France in 1559-60 before her husband died as King Francis II) claimed a better lineage to inherit the crown of England than Elizabeth I -- Mary was a great-granddaughter of Henry VII, and more importantly not a bastard. She cornered her sigil and everyone at the French court addressed her as the queen of England. As such, Mary Queen of Scots posed an imminent threat to Elizabeth I. Second, Catholic Spain and Philip II controlled possibly the wealthiest empire the world had seen to that time, and also the Netherlands only a 2 short distance across the channel from England. This added to the threat that Elizabeth I faced from Catholic powers. Third, Elizabeth faced religious discord in her own kingdom. No one knows the exact balance of Protestants and Catholics (and those in between) upon her accession, but without doubt the issue created the potential for domestic unrest and gave her Catholic enemies a possible weapon to use against her. Fourth, her treasury was empty, and her revenues scarce. As mentioned above, the wars of Henry VIII, Edward VI and Philip II had all stretched the financial capabilities of England to the limits by using financial expediencies -- mainly debasing the coinage. This created Elizabeth’s last problem -- the debased currency itself, which many blamed for the inflation that plagued the realm: starting in the 1540s, prices and wages rose sharply, and continued to rise for more than a century. The great inflation, as some historians have later called it, boggled English minds and inspired discourses that blamed social and economic changes on inflation. By the time Elizabeth I acceded to the throne, the debasement of the currency had become the official explanation for the cause of the inflation plaguing her kingdom. Elizabeth I’s recoinage of 1561, that restored the value of English coins -- attributed to her as her third greatest achievement on her gravestone -- intended to halt this inflation. Of course, the attempt to halt the inflation failed, but overall Elizabeth I prevailed; she reigned for 45 years, ruling over what has become known as a golden age. For example, she fixed England's financial woes, and set her on a path towards a global empire. England’s royal merchant, Thomas Gresham,1 wrote to Elizabeth I at the time of her accession on 17 November 1558 to “Come in as small debtt as you can beyond seays” and “keep your creditt, and specially with your owne marchants, for it is thaye must stand by youe att all 1 The man credited by modern economist with Gresham’s Law: that bad money drives out the good. 3 eventes in your necessity.”2 A bullion shortage in the realm should have made this nationalistic advice impossible, however. For instance, it has been estimated by Sir Albert Feavearyear that Elizabeth’s entire realm contained only 900,000 li worth of silver coinage,3 while C.E. Challis ​ ​ has estimated the circulating medium at only 1,454,000 li after the recoinage of 1561.4 ​ ​ ​ Nevertheless, Elizabeth found a way to keep Gresham’s advice long after his death in the early 1570s. Between 1559 and 1574 Elizabeth I borrowed 1,000,000 li overseas; from 1575 onwards, ​ ​ however, she borrowed only on her own island. She borrowed from the Corporation of London in 1575-6, and in 1588-9. She also forced loans from her wealthiest subjects in 1569, 1588, 1590, 1597, and 1601 that raised a total of 330,600 li. She borrowed another 90,000 li from ​ ​ ​ ​ London between 1598 and 1601.5 This transition from a reliance on foreign loans towards a reliance on domestic sources of liquid capital remains one of the signal achievements of the Elizabethan Age; perhaps overlooked because, despite war and famine and pestilence, Elizabeth I left more gold and silver to James I than debt. Moreover, the English renaissance reached new heights during her reign. The achievements of Shakespeare and the other great playwrights, who benefitted from the movement of plays from town squares and common halls to immense new theatres, provide the best example of this. The first theatre was built in 1576 and called The Theatre. It was named after its amphitheater shape adopted from Roman culture. Playhouses were elaborate constructions: silver was needed to pay ironmongers, carpenters, bricklayers, plasterers and 2 John William Burgon, The Life and Times of Sir Thomas Gresham: compiled Chiefly from his ​ Correspondence Preserved in Her Majesty’s State-Paper Office, Vol. 2 (London, 1839), 483-86 ​ 3 Sir Albert Feavearyear, The Pound Sterling: A History of English Money, Revised by Victor Morgan ​ ​ (London: Oxford University Press, 1963), 76 4 C.E. Challis, The Tudor Coinage, (New York: Manchester University Press, 1978), 246 ​ ​ 5 John Guy, Tudor England, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988), 382 ​ ​ 4 painters in order to build them. Moreover, the entire investment only made sense if one could expect a consistent audience willing to pay in silver coins to watch the players. It seems this happened and London city dwellers possessed plenty of silver for the theatre. William Harrison wrote some time between 1572 and 1592 that it was “an evident token of a wicked time, when plaiers waxe so riche that they can build such houses”6-- such houses as The Rose (1587), The Globe (1599), and The Fortune (1600). One actor in particular has been noted by historian Christopher Hill:“the financial genius of James Burbage brought playing from a small scale enterprise to a big business.”7 Indeed, James Burbage, a leading member of the earl of Leicester's company,8 obtained a 21 year lease on the first theatre; and, thereafter, he participated in the building of several other playhouses before he died a rich man. On top of this, England saw her exploration, and more importantly trade, expand in an unprecedented fashion by the end of Elizabeth’s reign. In fact, the establishment of the East India Company (EIC) in 1600 marks perhaps the most outstanding achievement of the Elizabethan age. Starting in the 1540s the famous silver cycle developed, which transferred silver from Japan, Europe, and the New World towards China, where it could be disposed of at 50% premium.9 The EIC aimed to take advantage of the price of silver in the east, and was thus a part of the silver cycle. In its first voyage, it exported 21,742 li worth of silver to the east for trade.10 ​ ​ By 1624 the company had exported altogether in 23 years 753,336 li in silver bullion.11 ​ ​ 6 William Harrison, The Description of England, edited by Georges Edelen (Ithaca: Cornell University ​ ​ Press, 1968), 186 7 Christopher Hill, Reformation to Industrial Revolution (Middlesex: Penguin Books, 1969), 89 ​ ​ 8 The Queen’s company was formed in 1583 largely of Leicester’s men -- and probably because of the large profits made by James Burbage from The Theatre.